The Roman Potteries at Durohrivce. 465 



of Roman Britain may be obtained from the collection and 

 study of the figures on the pottery made at Durobrivas. 



The upper figure to the right in our plate represents a 

 vessel in Durobrivian ware, which is preserved in the room of 

 British Antiquities in the British Museum. The figures upon 

 it represent a chariot-race in the Roman racecourse or stadium, 

 the traces of several of which have been met with in the neigh- 

 bourhood of our greater Roman stations. The chariot, or 

 quadriga, has the classical form, rather rudely designed, and 

 is drawn by four horses abreast. Other vessels of this pottery 

 were ornamented with encounters and combats between men 

 and men, or between men and animals. One fragment, as far 

 as we can judge from the portion of the animal which is left, 

 represented a man fighting a wolf, an animal then no doubt 

 common in the forests of Britain. Sometimes the ornamenta- 

 tion consists of mere groups of animals, or of fishes, especially 

 the dolphin. Birds, which were perhaps more difficult to form 

 with the potter's slip, are less frequent. 



But I will not attempt here to give anything like a list of 

 the various subjects represented on the Durobrivian pottery, 

 but will only allude to another class of subjects of extreme in- 

 terest as coming from a Romano-British pottery. These are 

 mythological subjects, which it must be confessed are not very 

 common, as they are on the foreign Samian ware, but they 

 all belong to the purely Roman mythology. A combination 

 of deities which appears to have been most popular in the 

 western provinces of the Roman empire was that of the gods 

 who presided over the days of the week, which, under the 

 Romans, commenced with Saturday (dies Saturni), and these 

 gods were arranged in the following order : Saturn, Sol (or 

 Apollo), Luna (or Diana), Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, and Venus. 

 Works of art of the Roman period representing these divinities 

 are found not uncommonly in Gaul, Germany, and Britain, and 

 they appear to have been rather a favourite ornament of the 

 Durobrivian pottery.* Fragments of several vessels with the 

 figures of the seven gods and goddesses have been met with, 

 from some of which Mr. Fairholt has restored the example 

 which forms the lower figure on the left-hand side of our plate. 

 This vessel presents also another characteristic of the Duro- 

 brivian ware, more especially employed in urns of this form. 

 It consists of indentations made in the side of the vessel, while 

 still soft, but after it had left the lathe, and continued with 

 regularity round it. Sometimes, where little ornament was 

 employed on the rest of the vase, these indentations were left 

 quite plain ; sometimes an ornament was introduced in the 



* See my book," The Celt, the Roman, and the Saxon, Second Edition, pp. 

 269 to 271. 



